whyinthehell

pixelcycle:

robot-heart-politics:

fuckyeahfeminists:

I admit I know virtually nothing* about the trial of Casey Anthony, who is accused of killing her almost three-year-old toddler, Caylee. I find the media and the public’s obsessive preoccupation with this murder trial to be morbid, just as it was with the 1996 Jon Benet Ramsey murder case.

….

But, most of all, I just find it—put it politely— selective. Virtually every month in New York City a young child is murdered either by his or her mother or the mother’s boyfriend or the adult responsible for the child—and hardly any of them ever gets the kind of national round-the-clock media coverage that Caylee Anthony’s death is receiving.

….This post drew the attention of Carole Moore, former police detective and author of The Last Place You’d Look: True Stories of Missing Persons and the People Who Search for Them. Moore says that the media and public’s tendency to focus only on cases that involve certain types of children—white, cute, female, and usually of a middle to upper-class demographic—is problematic because media coverage is what often leads to a break in a murder or missing person’s case.

Ugh, I remember the Jon Benet Ramsey media frenzy when I was a child. And back then I thought they were paying so much attention because what happened to her was so rare. But rather it was just that the media picks and chooses who is important/valuable enough to get attention about wrongs done to them.

On top of all this, I continue to find the way people have followed the Anthony trial—and the response to the verdict—really appalling. There have been “Justice for Caylee” images and memes flying all over my facebook wall since it happened. People are so outraged over this. Not that a child being killed isn’t outrageous, but why this child? Why this case? And why has the media invested so much in it?

It all seems like a soap opera or a lifetime TV movie to me, the way the media has blown it up.

There was a case in Kansas City 10-12 years back where a little black girl was found in the woods with no head. It’s the ONLY TIME I can EVER remember the media talking about a missing/dead girl that wasn’t white. I’m not sure if it ever made it outside of the greater KC area but it was big news for a while in KC at least. 

Howard Stern says, and he always puts it bluntly where general society finds it easier to place a dainty towel over the balls-out truth, that the only reason the case has gotten so much attention in America is because Casey Anthony is hot.  America is compulsively drawn to hot women…even - or maybe especially - if they’ve killed their children.  ~whyinthehell

(Might be offensive to non-Stern fans unfamiliar with Eric.)

“Eric The Midget”, notorious from the Stern show, is reallyreally wanted by the producers of Fringe, and they’ll be filming later this week.  Eric wants to be an actor and has gotten several small roles as a result of his participation in the show…but Fringe is by far the COOLEST!